


A Fearful Symmetry

by lilybeth84



Category: Elementary (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:37:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilybeth84/pseuds/lilybeth84
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It would be like Sherlock to leave his bedroom window open during a snow storm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fearful Symmetry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Speranza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speranza/gifts).



“WATSON!”

Joan Watson’s dream ended as it was taken over by the sound of her name rattling through her skull.

“WATSON!”

She forced her sleepy eyes open and glanced at her phone.

It was five-fifteen in the morning. With a groan, she pulled her comforter over her head. Perhaps he would just go back to sleep if she didn’t get up to see what he wanted. She waited a few seconds, but she didn’t hear him again and she figured he had given up. She breathed a sigh of relief and noticed her breath hovering in the air. Jesus, it was cold!

Shivering, she burrowed deeper into the warmth of her bed, ready to get at least another couple of hours of sleep. 

But that was not to be the case.

She had just drifted off when she felt something cold touch the back of her leg.

Her eyes flew open and with a pounding heart, she rolled over, the top of her head colliding with the underside of Sherlock’s jaw. 

He let out a muffled cry and she heard him tumble off the bed onto the floor.

“Sherlock?” She winced through chattering teeth, her head throbbing. “What the hell are you doing in my bed?”

Sherlock glared at her from the floor. “You didn’t answer when I called for you!” 

“It’s five o’clock in the morning!”

“Actually, its five twenty-one,” he mumbled petulantly.

She glared at him, her eyes adjusting to the dark.

“I’m cold.” He was wiggling his jaw back and forth. “The power is out, and it’s below freezing.” 

Joan sighed and rubbed her hands over her eyes. “And what do you want me to do about it?”

But Sherlock wasn’t paying attention. He was examining the inside of his mouth with his finger. 

“Ambleethink!” he mumbled. 

“What?” Joan asked in exasperation. 

Sherlock pulled his finger out of his mouth and shoved it through the dark into her face. “I’m bleeding!”

Swatting his hand away in disgust, Joan threw back the covers. “Alright,” she sighed. “I’ll look at it.” 

The moment she set her bare feet down on the floor, she regretted it instantly. She was only wearing cotton pajama pants and a whisper thin cotton shirt. The cold penetrated them as though they weren’t even there.

Teeth chattering, she practically ran to the bathroom, Sherlock close at her heels.

“I told you it was freezing,” he said disdainfully. 

“That doesn’t give you the excuse to come unannounced or uninvited into my bed,” she chattered at him, rummaging around the medicine cabinet for hydrogen peroxide.

It was a bit difficult to do in the dark, but organized as she was, she knew the general vicinity of where it was. Finding what she was looking for, she turned to him. 

“I don’t know what you thought you were going to get from me, but you can forget about it. Now open,” she ordered.

Using the light from her cell phone examined the inside of his mouth. Her fingers pulled gently against his upper lip. 

“Ow!” he yelped.

“Oh don’t be such a baby.” She peered into his mouth. The inside of his cheek was cut and bleeding, but it wasn’t in need of stitches.

Thank God, she thought. He’d probably make me do it here in the dark instead of going to the hospital.

“You’ll live,” she announced, shoving the bottle of hydrogen peroxide into his hands. “Rinse with that, and take a painkiller. Now I’m going back to bed.”

As she crawled back onto her bed, she realized Sherlock hadn’t moved. 

“It’s too cold,” he announced redundantly. 

“No shit, Sherlock,” she muttered, pulling the covers over her body—but the heat was already gone. Even with a comforter, she was still freezing, her toes most of all.

“And my room is drafty.”

“So get an extra blanket.”

There was a pause.

“Actually the window is frozen open again.”

“Again?!” Joan sat up and gave him a look of exasperation. “Why did you have the window open?”

“It was an experiment, and I needed the conditions to be as cold as possible,” He said loftily and not the least bit sorry.

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d think this was a ploy to seduce me,” she muttered, only half serious. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed. “If I wanted to seduce you, I wouldn’t stoop to such cheap tricks.”

“Okay—”

“I would have opened your bedroom window—”

She let out a snort of laughter at the absurdity of where this conversation was going. 

“—then I would begrudgingly invite you to share my bed where I would slowly inch closer to you, my breath on your neck, my hand brushing the small of your back—”

“Okay, I get the picture,” Joan interrupted loudly. Her cheeks were flushed and she felt hot. She was never gladder than in that moment it was too dark for him to see.

“Indicated by your rapid breathing—I’m halfway there already.” 

She could hear the smirk in his voice and she let out a sigh. She had walked right into that one.

“It’s warmer in the kitchen.” Sherlock said, rocking back and forward on the balls of his feet. “The stove still works…being gas and all.” He paused. “I have coffee?” 

“Alright, Sherlock,” She groaned and threw back the covers. “I’ll come.”

“You most certainly would,” he replied benignly, walking towards the doorway. “If you were in my bed.”

But he was gone, and the pillow she threw at his head landed on the floor with a soft “flump.”

\+ + +

“Do you have a flashlight?” she yawned, opening one of the kitchen cabinets. 

She had pulled on her heaviest down coat with the fur lined hood and a pair of shearling lined boots her mother had bought for her but that she had never worn. They weren’t exactly her style, but they were warm, and really, it wasn’t as if she were going out. They couldn’t even get the front door open for all the snow stacked against it.

The blue light from her phone showed nothing more than a few tins of Twining’s Tea and the odd package of ramen. She reached into the back and her hand felt something smooth.

She frowned and pulled the object out.

It was a skull.

With a shriek, she dropped it. It hit the edge of the counter and then landed on the floor where it smashed into pieces.

Suddenly there was a flare of light and Sherlock was at her side holding an old fashioned oil lantern that looked as though it hadn’t been used since its creation sometime in the first part of the last century.

“Alas, poor Yorick!” he cried mournfully, crouching over the shattered bone. “I knew him, Watson.”

“You have a human skull?” she squeaked out, her heart pounding loudly against her ribs. “Who is it?”

“I called him Yorick,” Sherlock said getting to his feet. “He was very useful in the occasional experiment.”

“Yorick?” she asked stupidly.

Sherlock sighed loudly. “From Ham—”

“I know the play!” she snapped, recovering from her shock. “I mean where did you get it?”

Sherlock shrugged and set the lamp down on the counter. “I got him from a medical student at NYU. Paid him a thousand dollars for it.” He gave her a haughty look. “And now his skull is useless, thanks to you.”

“You do know it’s illegal to own a human skeleton in the state of New York, don’t you?” 

Sherlock merely blinked at her. “So?”

“What do you mean, ‘So?’?”

“Oh, Watson, do stop worrying and have some coffee.” He shoved a cup at her, and immediately the feel of the warm mug against her icy fingers made her feel a bit less shivery.

“Where’s the rest of him?” she asked calmly, leaning against the counter. 

“Oh…somewhere,” he replied carelessly. “I think he’s stuffed in a closet upstairs.” He looked at her. “Maybe in your room—how should I know?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

He shrugged again. “He’s dead, Watson, get over it.”

“I don’t care that he’s dead!” The words thudded against the silence of the room, and she winced at how cold and harsh they sounded. 

“Well, good,” Sherlock said briskly, opening the fridge and taking out the carton of milk. He opened it and made a face. “The milk’s spoiled.”

“I don’t need milk,” she muttered.

She wasn’t bothered by the skeleton of a man (it was a man, judging by the size of his skull) whose tissues had decomposed long ago. He was beyond caring what happened to his remains. 

If she was being truthful to herself, it really had nothing to do with the skeleton at all.

Without a word, she went into the living room. She sat on the couch and pulled the soft blanket from the back of the couch over her, setting her coffee cup on the floor. He had already built a fire in the fireplace. The wind outside howled and the old brownstone creaked.

Sherlock followed her, settling into the ratty armchair next to the fireplace. He was wearing a large knit jumper, plaid flannel pajama pants and a pair of wool socks. He met her eyes, and she looked away. He sipped his coffee silently, watching her. Well he could sit there all day for all she cared—

“I can hear those wheels turning in your rather cobwebby brain.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this incessant guilt you carry around with you.”

“Since when did you care?” she snapped at him, finally losing her temper. 

“It’s beginning to get infectious, and I can’t feel guilty. It hinders my work.”

“Your work!” She finally lost her temper. “Because that is the only thing that matters! The Great Sherlock’s work!”

He merely looked bored, which only made her angrier. 

“It never bothers you—moving on from one case to another, not giving a damn.” She laughed but there was no humor in it. “You do it to cure boredom…. _boredom!_

“I solve cases,” he corrected loudly, “and cure boredom.”

“People are dying!”

“People die all the time.” 

“But I killed someone.” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a sob before she could stop them.

Sherlock stared at her hard, his eyes never once blinking. She looked away, flushing with embarrassment. She hadn't meant to bring that up again. Since he had figured out why she wasn't a surgeon anymore, she had avoided the topic at all costs.

“The problem with you, Watson,” he said, “is that you are an emotional sponge, soaking up all the pain and anguish that comes through your life, taking it on as your own.”

“I do not—” 

“Yes, you do, which is why you took this job working with addicts. You are punishing yourself for your crime by saving others. It worked—until you met me.”

She stared at him, speechless, as he got to his feet, and sloshing coffee over the rim of his mug, began to pace.

“What I do—it makes you feel alive. It thrills you beyond anything you’ve ever known before and you feel terrified because you can’t bear to go back to the endless cycle of addicts—to such mind-numbing BOREDOM!” 

More coffee sloshed onto the floor as he gestured back and forth between them. 

“You and me, we are very much alike. The only real difference between us—besides intellect, of course—is that if we didn’t feel empathy for victims, you would still be a surgeon and I would be out there committing murder instead of solving it.” The he picked up her cup and asked in a normal tone, “More coffee?”

He was gone before she could answer, and she could hear him puttering around in the kitchen, lit only by the ancient lamp. She put her head in her hands. 

He was right. She had not felt the way she did when she worked on cases with Sherlock since she’d graduated from med school. Back then she’d been hopeful and ambitious…but those dreams were now bitter ashes in her mouth.

She was still lost in thought when he came back, this time sitting beside her on the couch. He handed her a fresh cup of coffee.

“Would you really commit murder?” she asked softly, taking a sip. The coffee was hot and bittersweet. 

“If I was bored enough, probably,” he replied, looking over at her. “Would you ever return to being a surgeon?”

“No,” she replied honestly, but not willing to say anything more.

They both stared into the crackling fire, watching the logs burn down. 

Besides the fact that it was still snowing, the power was out, and she was stuck in this house with a man who kept human skulls behind his tea, it was rather comfortable. 

“Let’s find the rest of Yorick tomorrow,” she said suddenly. “Since his head is gone, we should at least treat the rest of his bones with the respect they deserve.”

Sherlock looked over in surprise.”What, and show him off to the dinner guests?”

“What dinner guests? We don’t have dinner guests.”

“That’s because people are boring,” he replied. “And I hate boring.”

“I know.”


End file.
